Hacktivists on Christmas Day announced new plans for more DDoS attacks against U.S. banks, and it appears Citi was among the first hit, although the attackers named no specific targets in their latest threat.

PNC and Wells Fargo both reported only minor disruption from online traffic surges on Dec. 20. Has the strength of DDoS attacks subsided, or are banks getting better at defending against these strikes?

Hacktivists announced Dec. 18 that they planned yet another round of distributed-denial-of-service attacks against five U.S. banks. Wells Fargo confirmed its online banking site experienced outages throughout the day.

Online outages affecting leading U.S. banking institutions continued Dec. 12, but only U.S. Bank confirmed its site issues were linked to a distributed-denial-of-service attack. Meanwhile, FS-ISAC outlined precautions institutions should take.

A day after Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters announced plans for a second wave of DDoS attacks, SunTrust, Bank of America and PNC experienced intermittent site issues, and U.S. Bank acknowledged the new threat.

Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Cyber Fighters has announced the "second phase" of its hacktivist campaign, saying five major U.S. banks will be the victims of new distributed-denial-of-service attacks starting this week.

From point-of-sale hacks to malware and DDoS attacks, the top cyberthreats of 2012 have been aggressive and strong. Is it time for organizations to adopt a "hack back" strategy against perceived attackers?

The recent wave of DDoS attacks against top U.S. banks is a wake-up call for organizations that are ill-prepared to fight against such an attack. NIST's Matthew Scholl offers strategies to mitigate the threat.

As missiles and bombs do real damage in Israel and Gaza, a veteran Israeli cybersecurity expert, Amichai Shulman, downplays the significance of the assaults waged against Israeli websites, contending any damage has been minimal.